Saturday, December 08, 2007

Chavela Again

My whole body is sore. Shoveling is not an activity for the middle aged. How many times do you hear of heart attacks brought on by shoveling snow. My lower back was sore from earlier in the week shoveling but now I'm sore everywhere. We were supposed to get two centimeters of snow overnight turning to rain but the rain never came and we got about four inches of the white fluffy stuff. It was perfect snow for making snow people but the shoveling had to be done.

I had no idea what a metal roof was going to bring. Huge banks have already materialized against the house where snow has slid off the steep roof. Snow that close could cause basement flooding. My gutters are not able to handle all the falling snow and after two snows, one section is already broken. It's always something, eh?

Gosh, I just got completely lost on a new music blog and forgot about this one. Music. We need music so it's back to the essentials. Chavela Vargas' La Llorona, which I've fawned over in the past is essential for sure. I've told the story of this remarkable woman and won't again but will provide a few links - Wikipedia, her own website, and a Youtube performance of La Llorona. This video is from the movie Frida, one of my favorite all time movies. The song uploaded today is from Chavela's very famous appearance at Carnegie Hall made in her eighties. She is eighty-eight now. I really like her music as she sang a traditional Latin ballad that was sung by men to seduce women. It's unusual to hear these songs by women but she did it anyway.

The second song is, Paloma Negra, which she also did for the movie Frida. I will never forget seeing this movie for the first time and when this song played I was awestruck. I immediately tried to find the soundtrack but in Charlottetown where we have no good record stores, it took six months. I got the movie when it became available. Both songs are very powerful. Enjoy!

6 comments:

Very very nice shot, especially when viewed large. The good thing is you won't have to shovel the roof. That is the big thing in this part of the country,careful roof shovelling so the shingles don't come of with the snow.